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Thursday, July 10, 2014

Day FOur - London

Oh my - we are getting lazier and lazier!!! I have a couple of pictures to post today, but we hardly took any. Why??? We went to a couple of exhibits where photography (and sketching) was NOT allowed.

First - we had to switch our accommodations. I had booked the hostel for three nights and then we were out. I have been searching for new accommodations a couple of days ago and had found something that is very close to where the hostel was - walking distance actually. I booked online and then got an e-mail that the confirmation was declined. Good grief - so I tried again. Still declined. Let's just say that we are VERY spoiled when one is in your own country with access to phone and internet.

This morning I walked to the hotel however I knew that they could not help me as I was doing the booking through lastminute deals and would have to deal with them directly. I used the phone at the hotel - got through - everything seemed OK on their end. I called VISA - everything was OK on their end. I finally said in exasperation to the hotel clerk - what is the difference in price from their price to the last minute deal. She did the calculation and came in 100 pounds LESS than lastminute. Seriously?????? Then she called lastminute directly and booked it through them??????? There is something seriously wrong with that. I am certain that if I had of booked the hotel with them directly, we would be paying a LOT MORE.

I have no idea, but here we are - gone from poverty in a hostel to a four star hotel and not a ton of difference in the price. A new building - it appears they ripped down row houses and built the hotel. AW - we are now in the lap of luxury!!!!

That took a LONG time to get fixed up and then we decided to wait for our room to be cleaned before we moved all our stuff. Did I mention that M has NO CONCEPT of packing. She did NOT pack to come on vacation. She packed to come and live. Her stuff weighs a ton. Me - I have lots of room in my suitcase to bring goodies home.

Anyway - then we walked to the Victorian and Albert Museum and saw two exhibits. The History of Italian Fashion and Wedding Desses. We both liked the Italian Fashion one - the Wedding Dress one has TONS of people and you know us and people - HATE IT!!!! But it was still quite interesting. No photos allowed and no sketching allowed. Drat!!!!! So interesting to see how forward looking these Italian designers were and how they did their first runway shows. And the ONLY Canadian city involved at that time - guess???? Nope - NOT Toronto - YES - Montreal. But we all knew that.

I think we will go back as there were a few other free things that we could see but we were exhausted by this time. Stopped to have a bite to eat and then back to the hotel where we both flacked out.

OK - so it was noisy at the hostel AGAIN last night. Not as bad as the previous nights, but still. (and the noisy group left TODAY) I can't seem to get caught up on my sleep and I'm hating it. I notice when I was reading in bed this evening that I can hear rowdy neighbours in the room next door. Good grief - I hope that doesn't last into the night. There is only so much lack of sleep my body will support.

And that was it for today!!! I know - pretty wimpy day. But we are trying to find some obscure places to go with less crowds. That is so sad. OK - note to self: - I like ADVENTURE vacations, like cycling, NOT tourists vacations. Don't get me wrong - we are having fun, but honestly this kind of vacation is way more exhausting than all the cycling that I did last year.

On that note - time to get a few pictures loaded and then off to read before bed.

One thing to note - it is hard to tell what city we are in. No it is very hard to even imagine that we are in an ENGLISH speaking city. We RARELY hear English spoken. There are tons of other languages around all the time and MOST of the servers and sales people are not ENGLISH speaking. I was a tad surprised by that.

And I hope you are all following QUILTsocial.com this week. What is your version of the journal cover???????? I am anxious to see them.